he has himself lived.

There he would find a person who would be himself at some earlier

period of his life. Now he could do something to this person which, by his memory, he knows
has not happened to him. This and similar contradictions, however, in order to prove the
impossibility of the worlds under consideration, presuppose the actual feasibility of the
journey into ones own past. But the velocities which would be necessary in order to complete
the voyage in a reasonable length of time are far beyond everything that can be expected ever
11

to become a practical possibility. Therefore it cannot be excluded a priori, on the ground of

the argument given, that the space-time structure of the real world is of the type described.
As to the conclusions which could be drawn from the state of affairs explained for the
question being considered in this paper, the decisive point is this: that for every possible
definition of a world time one could travel into regions of the universe which are passed
according to that definition. This again shows that to assume an objective lapse of time would
12

lose every justification in these worlds. For, in whatever way one may assume time to be
lapsing, there will always exist possible observers to whose experienced lapse of time no
objective lapse corresponds (in particular also possible observers whose whole existence
objectively would be simultaneous). But, if the experience of the lapse of time can exist
without an objective lapse of time, no reason can be given why an objective lapse of time
should be assumed at all.
It might, however, be asked: Of what use is it if such conditions prevail in certain possible
worlds? Does that mean anything for the question interesting us whether in our world there
Easing the calculation on a mean density of matter equal to that observed in our world, and assuming one were able to
transform matter completely into energy the weight of the fuel* of the rocket ship, in order to complete the voyage in t years
(as measured by the traveller), would have to be of the
12
XO
order of magnitude of - times the weight of the ship (if stopping, too, is t
effected by recoil). This estimate applies to t Irrespective of the value
of t, the velocity of the ship must be at least i/V: of the velocity of light.
11 For this purpose incomparably smaller velocities would be sufficient. Under the assumptions made in footnote 11 the

weight of the fuel would have to be at most of the same order of magnitude as the weight of the ship.

exists an objective lapse of time? I think it does. For, (1) Our world, it is true,
can hardly be represented by the particular kind of rotating solutions referred
to above (because these solutions are static and,